Leading Customer Loyalty Overview

Summary

Sandy Rogers from Franklin Covey emphasizes the importance of frontline employees in fostering customer loyalty, which is largely driven by their behavior. The company promotes a bottom-up, inside-out approach to customer service, focusing on internalizing empathy, responsibility, and generosity. Frontline workers are encouraged to connect with customers, listen actively to understand their needs, take responsibility for fulfilling those needs, and be generous in sharing insights to improve service. These practices build genuine loyalty.

Takeaways

• 🔑 More than 70% of customer loyalty is influenced by the behavior of frontline employees.
• 🌟 Franklin Covey advocates a bottom-up approach to improving customer experience, emphasizing the role of frontline staff.
• 💡 The inside-out approach focuses on changing behavior from within, starting with the heart, to ensure authenticity in customer interactions.
• 🤝 Empathy is the first principle for frontline workers, involving making warm connections and actively listening to understand customer needs.
• 👂 Responsible frontline employees discover the real job to be done, going beyond just fulfilling customer requests.
• 🔄 These employees also follow up with customers regularly to ensure satisfaction and improve service.
• 🎁 Generosity is the third principle, where team members proactively share insights and ideas to enhance customer service.
• 💡 The script suggests that frontline workers can enhance customer relationships by showing empathy, taking responsibility for customer needs, and treating them generously.
• 🎶 The overall message is that customer loyalty is built on the foundation of empathy, responsibility, and generosity displayed by frontline employees.

Q & A

What is Sandy Rogers' role at Franklin Covey?

Sandy Rogers is the loyalty practice leader for Franklin Covey.

What percentage of customer loyalty is attributed to the behavior of frontline employees?

More than 70% of what produces customer loyalty is based on the behavior of frontline employees.

How does Franklin Covey's approach to improving customer experience differ from traditional methods?

Franklin Covey advocates a bottom-up approach powered by the people on the frontline, rather than top-down prescriptions.

What does the term 'inside-out' mean in the context of Franklin Covey's approach?

The 'inside-out' approach refers to the idea that behaviors that produce loyalty must come from within an individual, from the heart.

What are the three essential principles that Franklin Covey suggests for creating customer loyalty?

The three essential principles are empathy, responsibility, and generosity.

How do empathic frontline employees differ in their interactions with customers?

Empathic frontline employees make a warm human connection and are great listeners, genuinely listening to understand the customer's needs.

What does it mean for frontline employees to be responsible in their approach to customer service?

Responsible frontline employees discover the real job to be done by going beyond what customers ask for, following up regularly to ensure satisfaction, and seeking to serve customers better.

How does generosity manifest in the actions of frontline employees?

Generous team members actively seek and share insights to improve service, give feedback, and come up with new ideas to surprise and delight customers.

Why is it important for customer service techniques to come from the heart according to Franklin Covey?

If techniques like smiling and greeting customers do not come from the heart, they can come across as counterfeit or phony, which can negatively impact customer loyalty.

What is the natural consequence of customers experiencing empathy, responsibility, and generosity from frontline employees?

Customers are likely to feel more loyal to employees who exhibit these behaviors.

How can frontline workers apply the principles of empathy, responsibility, and generosity in their daily interactions?

Frontline workers can apply these principles by making warm connections, actively listening, discovering real customer needs, following up on customer satisfaction, and constantly looking for ways to improve and surprise customers.

Outlines

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🌟 Building Customer Loyalty Through Frontline Behavior

Sandy Rogers, the loyalty practice leader for Franklin Covey, emphasizes that over 70% of customer loyalty is influenced by frontline employees' behavior. Franklin Covey promotes a bottom-up approach to improving customer experience, suggesting that loyalty is built from the inside out. This approach focuses on internalizing three fundamental principles: empathy, responsibility, and generosity. Empathy involves making a warm human connection and being a great listener to understand customer needs. Responsibility means discovering the real job to be done for the customer and following up to ensure satisfaction. Generosity is about actively seeking ways to improve service and surprising customers with extra efforts. These principles are essential for frontline workers to enhance customer relationships and loyalty.

Keywords

💡Loyalty

Loyalty in the context of the video refers to the customer's consistent preference for a particular brand or service. It's the emotional connection and commitment customers have towards a company. The video emphasizes that loyalty is largely influenced by the behavior of frontline employees, highlighting the importance of their actions in fostering long-term customer relationships.

💡Frontline Employees

Frontline employees are the staff members who interact directly with customers. In the video, it's mentioned that more than 70% of customer loyalty is based on their behavior. These employees are crucial for delivering a positive customer experience and are the face of the company to the customers.

💡Bottom-Up Approach

A bottom-up approach implies that the improvement of customer experience starts with the frontline employees rather than being dictated from the top management. The video suggests that empowering these employees to make changes can lead to more authentic and effective customer interactions, thus enhancing loyalty.

💡Inside-Out

The inside-out approach discussed in the video means that the behaviors leading to customer loyalty should come from within the employees, reflecting their genuine attitudes and values. This approach contrasts with merely teaching external techniques, emphasizing the importance of internal motivations and personal growth.

💡Empathy

Empathy in the video is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, particularly the customers. Empathetic frontline employees make a warm human connection and listen actively to truly understand customer needs. This principle is crucial for building trust and loyalty.

💡Responsibility

Responsibility, as used in the video, refers to the frontline employees' commitment to understanding and fulfilling the real needs of their customers. Responsible employees go beyond just meeting the immediate requests and instead aim to discover the underlying 'job to be done' for the customer, ensuring satisfaction and loyalty.

💡Generosity

Generosity in this context means the willingness of frontline employees to go beyond their basic duties to provide exceptional service. This could involve sharing insights, giving feedback, or creating additional value for the customer. Generous actions can lead to surprising and delighting customers, thus fostering loyalty.

💡Customer Service Training

Customer service training is mentioned as a common practice where employees are taught techniques like smiling and greeting customers. However, the video argues that if these techniques are not heartfelt, they can come across as insincere. Effective training should align with the inside-out approach to ensure genuine interactions.

💡Warm Human Connection

A warm human connection is a key outcome of empathetic behavior by frontline employees. The video suggests that making such connections is essential for creating a positive and memorable customer experience. It involves treating customers with kindness and respect, which can significantly impact their loyalty.

💡Active Listening

Active listening is highlighted as a practice where employees not only hear what customers are saying but also seek to understand their deeper needs. This involves asking probing questions and being attentive to the customer's responses, which can lead to stronger relationships and increased loyalty.

💡Follow-Up

Follow-up in the video refers to the practice of checking in with customers after a service interaction to ensure their satisfaction and to gather feedback for improvement. This proactive approach demonstrates the company's commitment to customer service and can help in building long-term loyalty.

Highlights

More than 70% of customer loyalty is based on the behavior of frontline employees.

Franklin Covey advocates a bottom-up approach to improving customer experience.

Behaviors that produce loyalty must come from the heart, not just techniques.

Franklin Covey's approach is inside-out, focusing on internalizing principles.

Three essential principles for loyalty are empathy, responsibility, and generosity.

Empathy creates a warm human connection and builds relationships.

Responsible frontline workers discover the real job to be done for customers.

Frontline employees should listen to learn, not just pretend to listen.

Follow-up with customers regularly to ensure satisfaction and improve service.

Generosity in service involves sharing insights and looking for ways to surprise customers.

Frontline workers can enhance customer loyalty by showing empathy, taking responsibility, and treating customers generously.

Customer service training should focus on behaviors that come from the heart.

Techniques like smiling and greeting customers are less effective without genuine empathy.

Internalizing the principles of empathy, responsibility, and generosity leads to more loyal customers.

Asking deeper questions helps frontline workers understand customers' real needs.

Feedback and new ideas from generous team members can improve service quality.

Surprising and delighting customers with little extras can enhance loyalty.

The importance of frontline employees in building customer loyalty cannot be overstated.

Transcripts

[Music]

my name is sandy Rogers and I'm the

loyalty practice leader for Franklin

Covey company do you know that more than

70% of what produces customer loyalty is

based on the behavior of frontline

employees so Franklin Covey takes a

completely different approach to

improving the customer experience and

thus building loyalty rather than

top-down prescriptions we advocate a

bottom-up approach powered by the people

on the frontline but how do you get

people on the frontline to change their

behavior when we say it's about who you

are we mean that the behaviors that

produce loyalty must come from inside

from the heart that's why our Franken

Covey approach is not only bottom-up but

also inside-out now most customer

service training is outside in that is

frontline people are taught techniques

like smiling and greeting customers but

if these techniques don't come from the

heart

they come across as counterfeit or phony

Franklin Covey's inside-out approach to

changing frontline behavior starts with

internalizing three essential principles

empathy responsibility generosity how do

you feel when people are empathic

responsible and generous with you does

it make you feel more loyal to them of

course it does it's a natural

consequence now it's one thing to say

that nepeta is important it's another to

practice empathy

what do empathic frontline people do

differently now first they make a warm

human connection with everyone second

they're great listeners they don't just

pretend to listen they listen to learn

what the customer really needs and to

build the relationship as for the second

principle of loyalty

what do responsible frontline people do

differently

first they discover the real job to be

done it's tempting to just give

customers what they asked for but if you

want their loyalty you'll go a little

deeper and you'll find out what they

really need ask what's going on with you

what are you trying to accomplish

instead of saying oh you're some good

running shoes or ask what are you

running goals the customers answer helps

you to really help them and not just

sell them something responsible

frontline people also follow up

regularly with customers to make sure

they're satisfied and to learn how to

serve them even better finally the third

principle of loyalty is generosity a

generous team member actively seeks

shares insights on how to improve

service sometimes that means giving

feedback or input to the team other

times it means coming up with new ideas

yourself a generous person is always

looking for new little extras that will

surprise and delight customers so there

you have it three fundamental principles

in the essential practices that create

customer loyalty three things frontline

workers can do every day to make the

most of customer relationships to show

empathy for customers to take

responsibility for their needs and to

treat them with generosity

[Music]